Man who brought Mugabe to power dies

HARARE – Lord Carrington, Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign minister and one of the chief architects of a peaceful outcome to the 1979 Lancaster House Conference that ushered Zimbabwe’s independence, has died.

He was aged 99.

The Conservative politician, who was also Britain’s former defence secretary, masterminded an agreement that led to the first one person-one vote elections in Zimbabwe’s history.

Carrington convinced Robert Mugabe, who was reluctant to sign the Lancaster House Agreement because he felt convinced that he could take power — not through the ballot box — but through reliance on his guerrillas, to ink the peace pact that ended white minority rule.

The late Bishop Abel Muzorewa wanted peace and so did Joshua Nkomo. But not Mugabe, who was persuaded by Lord Carrington to ink the pact.

Lord Carrington’s constituency MP, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington said: “His career was given to public service.”

I do not think so, Ace. Thatcher, Carrington and Soames wanted a quick fix to dump the problem. Cynically handing the country to the biggest bully was their solution. Soames promised opposition parties that he would void the 1980 election results in areas where ZANU intimidation was rife. He failed to keep this promise resulting in ZANU gaining a far larger majority than in a free and fair election. Carrington must share a large part of the blame for the resulting gukurahundi and 38 years of misrule.

I tend to agree, Harper!! The british wanted nothing other than to get rid of the Rhodesia problem and were prepared, and did, lie to all to achieve this. They then walked away and to this day still lie, deny and blame others for their own incompetencies…much like ZANU-PF. Awful people and country and I was born there!

Interesting comments by all . Mugabe wanted it all and threatened to continue fighting knowing full well the freedom fighters were taking a beating by the Rhodesian forces. The British simply lied and simply sided with someone who would look after their interests irrespective of any other peoples reactions. They hande the country to a loser and the rest is history.